Move come after interpreter who came to Canada, Sayed Shah Sharifi, loses five relatives in Taliban attack. Immigration minister expresses his condolences.

Sharif Khan, 5, was seriously injured by a roadside bomb blast that killed three other childen and two women, following threats by the Taliban after their relative Sayed Shah Sharifi, a former combat interpreter for Canadian forces, fled to safety in Toronto.

By:Hamida GhafourForeign Affairs reporter, Published on Wed May 22 2013

Britain and Denmark announced plans to give refuge to hundreds of Afghan interpreters, as the fate of Afghans who worked for NATO becomes a pressing political issue for the alliance as it withdraws its combat troops from the war-torn country.

The offer of asylum to protect translators from Taliban reprisal attacks comes after five members of former interpreter Sayed Shah Sharifi’s family were murdered by the militants in Kandahar on May 13. Among the victims were three small children.

Britain, which has 9,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, plans to give 600 Afghan interpreters who worked on the front line with its soldiers for more than a year the chance to settle in the U.K. with a five-year visa, Prime Minister David Cameron said.

Denmark, which will pull out its combat troops in August, said Afghans who have worked with Danish soldiers would be given visas and allowed to apply for refugee status, although Defence Minister Nick Haekkerup did not specify how many.

“We do not have a judicial responsibility but a moral obligation to help,” he said, according to Reuters.

Sharifi, 24, arrived in Toronto last year under a special program for Afghans who worked with Canadian soldiers. The government initially rejected Sharifi’s application on the basis that his fears of being killed were not credible.

After years of death threats, his family in Kandahar was ambushed on their way to the family village in a remote part of the province. Their vehicle exploded when the Taliban detonated a roadside bomb.

Under Canada’s two-year visa program — which ended in 2011 when Canada’s mission to Kandahar finished — 800 translators and their families will be settled in Canada, said Alexis Pavlich, a spokeswoman for Immigration Minister Jason Kenney.

“We’d like to express our sincere condolences to Mr. Sharifi on the loss of his family,” she said in a statement. “Our government recognizes that these brave and courageous Afghans made a significant contribution to our mission, and saved Canadian lives.”

There are currently 100,000 NATO soldiers in Afghanistan, but by the end of 2014, the vast majority of troops will be gone and responsibility for security will be handed over to the Afghan army and police. A number of NATO soldiers, including 950 Canadians, are helping to train Afghan security forces.